Shuji Nakamura

Nakamura graduated from the University of Tokushima in 1977 with a B.Eng. degree in electronic engineering, and obtained an M.Eng. degree in the same subject two years later, after which he joined the Nichia Corporation, also based in Tokushima. It was while working for Nichia that Nakamura invented the first high brightness gallium nitride (GaN) LED whose brilliant blue light, when partially converted to yellow by a phosphor coating, is the key to white LED lighting, which went into production in 1993.

Previously, J. I. Pankove and co-workers at RCA put in considerable effort, but did not manage to make a marketable GaN LED in the 1960s. The principal problem was the difficulty of making strongly p-type GaN. Nakamura drew on the work of another Japanese group led by Professor Isamu Akasaki, who published their method to make strongly p-type GaN by electron-beam irradiation of magnesium-doped GaN. However, this method was not suitable for mass production and its physics were not well understood. Nakamura managed to develop a thermal annealing method which was much more suitable for mass production. In addition, he and his co-workers worked out the physics and pointed out the culprit was hydrogen, which passivated acceptors in GaN.

At the time, many considered creating a GaN LED too difficult to produce; therefore Nakamura was fortunate that the founder of Nichia, Nobuo Ogawa (1912–2002), was initially willing to support his GaN project. However the company eventually ordered him to suspend work on GaN, claiming it was consuming too much time and money. Nakamura continued to develop the blue LED on his own and in 1993 succeeded in making the device.[7]

He was awarded a D.Eng. degree from the University of Tokushima in 1994. He left Nichia Corporation in 1999 and took a position as a professor of engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

In 2001, Nakamura sued his former employer Nichia over his bonus for the discovery as a part of a series of lawsuits between Nichia and Nakamura with Nichia's US competitor Cree Inc.; they agreed in 2000 to jointly sue Nichia at the expense of Cree and Nakamura received stock options from Cree. Nakamura claimed that he received only ¥20,000 (≈US$180) for his discovery of "404 patent," though Nichia revealed that the company awarded him with promotions and bonuses of 62 million yen over 11 years and his annual salary reached 20 million yen when he quit Nichia.[8]

Although Nakamura originally won an appeal for ¥20 billion (≈US$180 million), Nichia appealed the award and the parties settled in 2005 for ¥840 million (≈US$9 million), at the time the largest bonus ever paid by a Japanese company.;[9] this was, however, consumed by legal fees incurred by Nakamura in reaching the settlement [10]

Nakamura has also worked on green LEDs, and is responsible for creating the white LED and blue laser diodes used in Blu-ray Discs and HD DVDs.[11]

Nakamura is a professor of Materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara.[12] In 2008, Nakamura, along with fellow UCSB professors Dr. Steven DenBaars and Dr. James Speck, founded Soraa, a developer of solid-state lighting technology built on pure gallium nitride substrates.[13] Nakamura holds 208 US utility patents as of May 5, 2020.[14]

• 2001 – Asahi Prize from the Japanese Newspaper, Asahi Shimbun
• 2002 – Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics from the Franklin Institute.
• 2006 – Finland's Millennium Technology Prize for his continuing efforts to make cheaper and more efficient light sources.[15][16]
• 2007 – nominee for the European Inventor Award awarded by the European Patent Office [17]
• 2008 – Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research.[18]
• 2008 – Honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
• 2008 - Holst Memorial Lecture Award [Eindhoven University of Technology and Royal Philips Research, the Netherlands].
• 2009 – Harvey Prize[19] from the Technion in Israel.
• 2012 – Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association (SVIPLA) Inventor of the Year.[20]
• 2014 – Nobel Prize in Physics together with Prof. Isamu Akasaki and Prof. Hiroshi Amano for inventing blue light-emitting diodes.[21]
• 2015 – Global Energy Prize for the invention, commercialization and development of energy-efficient white LED lighting technology [22]
• 2017 – Mountbatten Medal[23]
• 2018 – Zayed Future Energy Prize[24]

• List of Japanese Nobel laureates

• Shuji Nakamura, Gerhard Fasol, Stephen J. Pearton, The Blue Laser Diode : The Complete Story, Springer; 2nd edition, October 2, 2000, (ISBN 3-540-66505-6)
• Bob Johnstone Brilliant!: Shuji Nakamura and the revolution in lighting technology, Prometheus Books, 2007 ISBN 1-59102-462-5

• Professor Nakamura's home page at UCSB
• The Solid State Lighting and Energy Center at UCSB
• Shuji Nakamura Wins $188.7 Million Settlement from Former Employer Nichia for Blue Spectrum Breakthrough Technology
• New York Times article on Nakamura's settlement with Nichia
• U.S. Patent 6,900,465 — Nitride semiconductor light-emitting device
• Shuji Nakamura wins the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize
• Nichia's Shuji Nakamura: Dream of the Blue Laser Diode
• 2008 Prince of Asturias Award For Technical and Scientific Research
• Harvey Prize
• Shuji Nakamura SPIE Photonics West plenary presentation: Future and present technologies of solid state lighting